Taking Hold

As I noted way back at the end of October, my computer failed just a day after we drove home from Heart Lake through a snow storm that delayed us and turned a three hour trip into an eight hour trip.

The problem was diagnosed as hard drive failure and I paid around $1,000 for data recovery. I bought a new hard drive and I finally got my computer back just before Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I was using Liz’s notebook computer. Well, it soon became apparent that there was still something wrong with the computer, as it kept giving me the blue screen of death. So I took it back to the shop.

I picked it up again on December 3rd; the diagnosis was a software problem. However, I soon began encountering bluescreens again, so I took it back once more. The technician, Irit, took quite a long time to pin down the problem. I was away twice, she had a bad case of flu, but finally, after a good deal of trial and error, she determined that the problem was the video card, which unfortunately is part of the motherboard, so I needed a new computer. Since I had already spent so much on data recovery, I looked hard for a desktop replacement laptop for under $700.

Now I finally have my new computer and have finished the slow process of installing all of the software I normally use. It’s been a long three months. I still have to clean up behind myself on Liz’s laptop and I have a lot of catching up to do. But I don’t feel crippled anymore.

I’m Back

On Monday afternoon, around 4:45 pm, Liz and I arrived home from our Florida trip. I’m very happy we went and especially happy that I got to see my Aunt Joyce and my cousins Eric and Sven in Miami.

When we got home, as we came into the building we saw a notice that our neighbor Bob Seaver, a retired professor at Union Theological Seminary, had died last Wednesday. Then when we up to our tenth floor apartment, we discovered that our next door neighbor, Aimee Scheff, had died early Sunday morning.

Both funerals are this afternoon -- Aimee's at 2 pm at a funeral chapel on 91st Street and Amsterdam Ave. and Bob's at 4 pm at The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, at 112th Street, also on Amsterdam Avenue. So they are a mile apart. It remninds me of the time we had invitations to two weddings, one at the cathedral and one at St. Michael's Church, at 100th Street and Amsterdam. It was not possible to attend both weddings, we had to pick one and go to both receptions. It will be possible to attend both funerals.

We didn't have high speed internet access for most of last evening, so we didn't check all of our emails. This morning we saw that there are some delightful new pictures of our granddaughter Amanda. I'll be posting one or two of them later -- as well as some pictures from our trip.

I'm still using Liz's laptop, since mine is still in the shop -- I'm betting I'll need a new one, but until I know definitely whether the problem is the video card or the motherboard, I'll keep hoping.

Greetings to all, especially my cousin Eric my only follower), my cousin Sven, and my Aunt Joyce. Gotta get dreesed for the funerals. Bye.

UPDATE 8:45 PM

We didn't get to the second funeral after all -- we spent the afternoon in a lunch with Aimee's brother and sister-in-law and several Morningside Gardens friends.

Greetings from Florida

My only computer access here on Anna Maria Island is at the library, where I am in competition for computers with several others, but the wait is never too long.

Liz and I are enjoying our vacation so far and we are looking forward to going to Miami tomorrow. We'll visit my Aunt Joyce whom I have not seen for half a century.

I'll have more to say when we are back in New York.

Away to Florida

We're off to Florida for a week.
While we're away, we'll miss author Thomas Cahill preaching at St. Mary's tomorrow, January 25, Prisosn Ministry Sunday in the Diocese of New York.
We'll also miss a special service on February 1 in which the Harlem Episcopal churches will honoe the ministry of Bishop Don Taylor, assisting bishop in the Diocese of New York, on the occasion of his retirement.
Too bad we can;t be in two places at the same time.

I probably won't post anything until I'm back.

Marion Hatchett on the American Church and Anglicanism

The Anglican arrived yesterday. It contains a "Response to the Distinguished Alumnus/a Award at The General Theological Seminary" by Marion J. Hatchett. The whole response is worth reading and I wish I had been there last October to hear him deliver it. Here are the last two paragraphs:

The American Church always seems to jump way out ahead of the Church of England and our other sister churches, and in a number of respects. One was in giving voice to priests and deacons and to laity (as well as to bishops and to secular government officials) in the governance of the national church and of dioceses and parishes. The American Church revised the Prayer Book in a way that went far beyond revisions necessitated by the new independence of the states. From its beginning the American Church legalized the use of hymnody along with metrical psalmody more than a generation before use of "hymns of human composure" became legal in the Church of England. At an early stage the American Church gave recognition to critical biblical scholarship. The American Church eventually gave a place to women in various aspects of the life of the church including its ordained ministry. The American Church began to speak out against discrimination against those of same-sex orientation, and the American Church began to make moves in establishing full communion with other branches of Christendom.

Historically the American Church has been the flagship in the Anglican armada. It has been first among the provinces of the Anglican Communion to take forward steps on issue after issue, and on some of those issues other provinces of Anglicanism have eventually fallen into step behind the American Church. My prayer is that the American Church will be able to retain its self-esteem and to stand firm and resist some current movements which seem to me to be contrary to the principles of historic Anglicanism and to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.

The full talk is online here. The Anglican is a publication of the Anglican Society. 2008 Dues/Subscription = $15 US ($20 foreign) -- I think this is the latest rate -- the figures on the website are out of date.

Updated Friday to point to the text of the paper.

Gratitude

Thanks to Mad Priest several vistors dropped by my blog early this week. I'll be returning the favor and updating my blog roll, but probably not for a couple of weeks -- for reasons stated below.

Here are three other things I am grateful for.

Barack Hussein Obama is now President of the United States of America. Thanks be to God.

There is a ceasefire in Gaza -- or rather two unilateral ceasefires. Thanks be to God.

In about a week and a half I'll be seeing my Aunt Joyce for the first time in about 50 years. Thanks be to God.

Here we are 70 years ago (actually more, since it was in the summer of 1939). As you can see, Aunt Joyce is only seven years older than I. Joyce is my father's youngest sister and the sole survivor among my father and his siblings. She moved to Miami about 50 years ago. Here is a picutre taken while she still lived in New York State. She was a TV personality at the time.


A little more than 10 years ago, I reconnected with Aunt Joyce by email and telephone. I've been meaning to arrange a trip to Florida ever since, but it wasn't until this year that Liz and I got to it.

This coming Saturday, January 24th, we are flying to Tampa for almost a week with Liz's cousin Oliver on Ana Maria Island, just below St. Petersburg. Then we drive to Miami for a couple of days visting Aunt Joyce and part of her family.

I most likely will not be taking a laptop, so I don't know how much internet access I'll have.

I'm grateful that after half a century I'm going to see my beloved Aunt Joyce.

About blogging

It took me five days to write the last post. At first, I didn't know where it was going. I also don't know whether I have an audience, but no matter -- I will press on. I wonder what's next.

Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo wo wo).

Mrs. Robinson will be moving into the White House next week, as will her daughter and son-in-law, along with her granddaughters. I learned about this the other day from the New York Times. I was going to write about it.

On Monday, I learned about another Robinson -- Bishop Gene Robinson has been invited to deliver the invocation at the opening event of the inauguration festivities next Sunday. I first learned it at Of Course I Could Be Wrong and I wasn't sure it was true until I checked The Lead at Episcopal Cafe. At The Lead, Jim Naughton, who apparently broke the story, reports that it became the biggest blog event of the day at 4:30 Monday afternoon.

There were a few other things in the past few days that I wanted to take note of. Last week, our local weekly The Westsider had an aricle about a shelter for homeless LGBTQ teenagers here in New York City. It's not online, so I can't link to it, and we gave the paper to someone in our church who works with homeless people. The article makes the point that for these kids there are more pressing issues than same-sex marriage (or ordination of bishops and other clergy.) Bishop Robinson is quoted in the Concord Monitor as having told Beliefnet "The difficult thing is that [Rick Warren]'s said, and continues to affirm, some horrendous things about homosexuality." The horrendous things that Bishop Gene is referring to lead to horrendous consequences -- as witness the incidence of suicide among LGBTQ youth, the family rejection that many of the homeless LGBTQ youth have experienced, and violence against LGBTQ persons.

On Saturday I learned, also from MadPriest, that a church in my home town had lost its bid to keep the property ater the congregation seceded from the Episcopal Church. The Church of the Good Shepherd, on the south sde of Binghamton, is one of three parishes in the Diocese of Central New York that withdrew from the Episcopal Church at least in part in protest over the consecration of Bishop Robinson in 2003. Good Shepherd, whose rector is Matt Kennedy, is the only one of the three parishes which actually pursued the legal battle to the end (see this article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin.) Monday or Tuesday, I read in a post by Matt Kennedy over at Stand Firm (I will not link there) that they were given a a little more than a month to vacate the premises -- and they had to pay while they stayed. Well, on the church blog Matt reports they have found a disused RC rectory to house the Kennedys. and the gym of a Baptist Church for Sunday worship -- both within less than a mile and a half of their old church.

In a comment at OCICBW last week, Matt Kennedy wrote

Say what you will about me and my parishioners...as you have...but believe it or not, in all sincerity, we believe those who promote same sex sexual behavior are, albeit unintentionally, hurting people by leading them away from Christ.

I certainly believe he is sincere -- I also think he is dead wrong in his approach to the bible and the true nature of orthodox Christianity. I also think he is wrong about Anglicanism, but this is ground that has been contested at least since the days when Richard Hooker and his cousin Walter Travers preached at the Temple Church in the 1570's. I hope to write more about the significance of contested ground, but for now I want to take a close look at Matt Kennedy's statement.

"Those who promote same sex sexual behavior" is an odd choice of words. It isn't about promoting any kind of sexual behavior. It's about affirming people, accepting who they are, and where necessary encouraging them to accept who they are.

Affirming people does not lead them away from Christ. Telling people that God hates what they do when what they do is intimately related to who they are does indeed lead many people away from Christ.

I'll leave it to others to talk about why it is right for Gene Robinson to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church and wrong for Matt Kennedy to teach that same sex sexual behavior is contrary to God's will.

I conclude with part (slightly updated) of a 17th century prayer written when there was contested ground in the church:

O God, the Creator and Preserver of all humankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of people; that thou wouldest be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for thy holy Church universal; that it may be so guided by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.

KJS at St. Mary's (Just Another Sunday)

Situated as we are in the Manhattanville valley, a few blocks from Union Theological Seminary and the Columbia University campus, we get a fair number of interesting visitors at St. Mary's. Just before the 10 AM service this morning, I noticed that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her husband Richard Schori were in the congregation. They were just visiting.

Today in place of a sermon we had the annual Sunday School Christmas Pageant -- the topic was the Slaughter of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt. Under the direction of Jim White, the slaughter took place in the sacristy, so all we heard were terrible screams. In the last scene, the soldiers had a change of heart -- that is, they repented -- and joined the Holy Family as refugees in Egypt. Then each soldier, or rather each child actor, presented gifts to the baby Jesus commemorating the names and ages of children killed in Iraq. I think the PB was as appreciative of the pageant as the rest of us.

Most of the congregation were not aware that Bishop KJS was there until announcement time, which we have just before the blessing and dismissal.

New Year's Day

Picking up where the last post left off ...
It was a real time away for us -- no internet, no TV news, very little radio news, no newspaper most days. I can't remember when I became aware that all hell had broken loose in Gaza.

I spent most of my personal time reading and trying to write a coherent piece about what I was reading. On the way to Jane and Scott's on Christmas Eve, we stopped for gas in Brattleboro, Vt and bought the New York Times. The was a front page article on Jewish response to the Bernard Madoff scandal. I was particularly struck by a statement made by Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Congregation Ansche Chesed which is about a mile and a half from our apartment in Morningside Gardens.

In a recent sermon, Rabbi Kalmanofsky described Mr. Madoff as the antithesis of true piety. “I said, what it means to be a religious person is to be terrified of the possibility that you’re going to harm someone else,” he said.

The first time I read that, it struck a chord but I thought that "terrified" was a little over the top. The more I ponder it, though, the less extravagant I think it is.

As we started out from New York on Christmas Eve, I turned on the radio to catch the end of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge. After I listened to the ninth lesson (John 1:1-14) I mentioned to Liz that I had read a wonderful rendering of John 1:14a at Preludium:

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood... (1.14a, The
Message)

(As an aside, I had never consciously encountered The Message before and in fact it was only after I got back to New York that I discovered where that rendering came from. In the course of looking The Message up, I found an otherwise perceptive review that oddly thinks the rendering "moved into the neighborhood" is facetious.)

We got to Jane's house too late to go to the afternoon Christmas Eve service at Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier, so we went to another church a little later. -- I won't say which one. We did get to Christ Episcopal Church on Sunday and got to hear the opening of John again. The rector, David Hall, preached a fine sermon. We go to that church whenever we are visiting Jane on a Sunday. and we like it.

While at Jane's, I was also reading Helene Cooper's The House at Sugar Beach, a large part of which is about the bloody events in Liberia that began in April 1980. As I thought about the evils of war as exemplified by the Liberian events, about Rabbi Kalmanofsky's observation that to be religious is to be fearful of inflicting harm on another, and about the Incarnation, which is central to my own religious faith, I contemplated writing a brilliant blog post on the subject -- even though almost no one reads this blog. Since I didn't have my computer with me, I began composing in a spiral notebook.

I got far enough to observe that not doing harm was not enough -- we actually have to do good.

Another book I began reading in Vermont was Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. On Sunday after I learned that Israel had begun bombing Gaza, I was particularly struck by Obama's observation on the difference between values and ideology.

Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question.

Rather than getting into a rant about Israel and Palestine, I just want to observe that it appears obvious to me that the public statements of Israeli officials are dripping with ideology. The statements of the weaker party, Hamas, are also dripping with ideology.

In that article on the Madoff scandal, Rabbi Jennifer Krause said

The Talmud teaches that a person who only looks out for himself and his own interests will eventually be brought to poverty.

I believe that principle extends to security -- even national security.

The End of the Year

A week ago, on Christmas Eve, Liz and I left New York and drove to Jane and Scott's house in Vermont. We had a great time there, not least because we got to spend a good bit of time with our granddaughter Amanda. On the way home we stopped first and ahd lunch and a nice visit with Liz's brother and sister-in-law Peter and Cynthia. Afterwards we drove on down to the Berkshires and spent the night with our friends Roger and Holly, who are building a house near where Holly grew up. Finally we drove home, getting here midafternoon on Tuesday the 30th.

More to come.

The first week of December

Let's see.
Barack Obama named Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State.
A group of former Episcopalians and others formed what they call a province of the Anglican Church in North America, but which is in fact a new denomination.
The Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles promulgated a rite for the blessing of same sex blessings.

Closer to home:
I picked up my computer, but it has crashed again. Probably I need to have Windows reinstalled.
On Saturday evening, Liz and I went to dinner in a Venezuelan restaurant with four three generations of the family of a friend of Liz's from her Union Seminary days. It was in honor of the birthday of the friend's granddaughter. Among the party were a female same sex couple who attend another St. Mary's Church -- this one in Rockport. MA. It was fun talking to them, and I'd like to get better acquainted.
Not technically part of the first week, on December 7th at St. Mary's, the celebrant was the Rev. Patricia (Patty) Ackerman. Patty was at St. Mary's as a seminarian, and has been actively ivolved on several progressive fronts. The Gospellers were Lysander Puccio and Miguel Escobar (we hear the gospel in both English and Spanish.) The sermon was by Betty Reardon, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. During the service I counted seven known lesbian and gay people among the thirty or so people there. I think there might be others, but my gaydar isn't what it used to be. In an interesting and unplanned way, this service was St. Mary's answer to the "Duncanites."

It's Monday morning, and I'm off to the computer shop again.

My Computer

I got my computer back last Thursday, after three weeks without it. Then, the same day, it crashed again with a blue screen. I took it back to the shop and am again working with Liz's laptop, but not before I had managed to get almost all of the files I need backed up -- either on external media or on Liz's computer.

I feel curtailed in two or three ways -- first, although I now have access to my files, in order to use them effectively I would have to take over Liz's computer. Second, projects I was working on during the summer and into the fall are now at a standstill. Third, I am limited in what I can take on new. In short, I need my own computer.

Morningside Heights and Harlem Delights

From our terrace in Morningside Gardens I can see parst of Grant's Tomb, Jewish Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, Corpus Chrisi Church, the Interchurch Center, Teachers College, Barnard College, Columbia University, and look across Harlem on 124th Street. Nearby, but out of sight from our apartment are Riverside Church and the Manhattan School of Music.

On Friday evening, Liz and I attended an evening of opera scenes at Manhattan School of Music (MSM). MSM does this twice a year and we have attended many times over the years. This year the theme was Opera as Politics -- the evening began with a scene from Donizetti's Maria Stuarda dramatizing the final rift between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Suart Queen of Scots. There were several fine musical moments in the evening. I want to take note of two dramatic highlights.

I especially enjoyed an excerpt from Lehar's Die Lustige Witwe -- the end of the second act in which Hanna pretends to be engaged to Camille. I don't think I have ever scen this operetta performed in German before. The portrayal of Danilo by Chris Lucier seemed to me to be the best I have ever seen -- in part because the scene plays better, to my ears at least, in German than in English translation.

The Merry Widow was the applause machine that ended the first part; the evening ended with another applause machine -- because of its staging: the election campaign scene (Act III, Scene III) of Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe, in which William Jennings Bryan comes to Leadville during one of his presidential campaigns. MSM cast the sole Black member of the ensemble as Bryan. It was brilliant stagecraft and musically satisfying as well.

Wednesday Jury Duty

Today I started jury duty at 100 Centre Street -- the Criminal Court Building in New York City.

When I first got the summons for September 11 this year, we were planning to stay at Heart Lake for several weeks so I took advantage of an automatic deferment option. I was presented with the choice of deferring for anywhere from two to six months. I knew we would back in New York in November, so I chose to defer for two months.

The work on my dental implants is taking place only on Wednesdays, and I knew when I got the jury notice for November 12 that if I got on a case there was a likelihood that I would be tied up not only today (a Wednesday) but also next Wednesday. As it happens, I am currently part of a group undergoing voir dire on a case that is scheduled to hear evidence next Wednesday. I have an appointment next Wednesday and if I get on the jury I will have to reschedule it. I will know by the end of tomorrow whether I am on the jury or not.

Over the years, I have been on several juries -- the ones that stand out in my memory are murder, drug sales, and robbery in state criminal court and two interesting federal cases: a complaint against the City of New York and several corrections officers of assault on a prisoner and a wire fraud case (involving gold plated silver replicas of Chinese gold panda coins) before Judge Michael Mukasey.

I have also been empaneled but not selected on several cases, too. So I really don't care whether I am chosen -- on the one hand, a trial is fun, on the other hand, I have plenty to do and I don't need to be on a trial for entertainment.

Saturday Rambling Thoughts

There's lots of big news this week. And there has also been some small developments in my own life.

First, of course, is the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. I first voted for president in 1960. The country has come an amazing distance since then. I heard one commentator mentioning the difference in perceptions between people over and under 45 -- I think the magnitude of the change resonates more for those in my generation -- the pre boomer generation who lived through the civil rights movement of the late 1950's and the 1960's.

Second, the anti equality votes for LGBT people in California and elsewhere is disappointing. The struggle continues.

Third, the vote by the Diocese of Quincy to align with the Province of the Southern Cone, while expected, is saddening.

In my own life, the most pressing matter is the death of my computer. As I noted in an earlier post, the computer failed over a week ago, on October 29. Since I have Liz's laptop to use, I took my time deciding what steps to take. I finally decided to take it to a place on Broadway near 32nd Street that offers both computer repair and data recovery services. On the repair side, they told me that the hard drive was damaged, so I asked for a quotation on data recovery. When that quote came back at $925, I realized I had some hard thinking to do.

I called the shop that sold me the computer and they tried hard to sell me a new laptop with similar power for over $1,800. I'd love to have a powerful new computer, but I don't want to spend that kind of money this year for reasons that are probably obvious to everyone. So I did a little more investigating.

I found a recommendation to remove the hard drive and put it in a USB drive enclosure, so I rushed out and bought an enclosure so that I could try to recover the data myself. Then i went to the repair shop to pick up my laptop. While I was there, the technician asked me whether I had considered repairing the computer. She said that if I provide a new hard drive, she can reinstall the operating system for $150. At the same time, she told me what kind of hard drive to buy -- and I learned that I had bought the wrong enclosure for the damaged drive.

I know I am going to go ahead, buy a new hard drive, and have the computer repaired. I am still undecided about whether to attempt data recovery myself, or simply to pay for the recovery.

The Struggle Continues

Liz and I went over to vote a little after 10 am -- there was quite a line and we finally voted at about 11. I had every intention of following Tobias's Election Gospel Challenge but there were too many friends in the line for me to concentrate on reading Matthew -- I only got up to the verse where Joseph names the baby Jesus. Like Counterlight I voted for Obama, and for my State Senator, Bill Perkins, on the Working Familes line, but I did not vote for US Representative, Charlie Rangel. Instead I voted for Craig Schley -- it was a protest vote because Rangel consistently supports real estate interests over the objections of our local community.

As I heard Howard Zinn say recently, I voted for Obama -- with trepidation. He talks as if there are no poor people -- it's all about "middle class." A tax cut for everybody making less that $150,000? Come on! Last night at St. Mary's food pantry they gave out 50 packages of food in a little over an hour. Because it was the first Monday of the month, that was a low amount -- the week before, the last week of October, it was 80 packages.

Remember, whoever wins, the struggle continues.

All Saints Sunday

Yesterday at St. Mary's we had a baptism -- an interesting way to celebrate All Saints. On the first Sunday of the month, we have a custom of "Prayers for Baptismal Anniversaries, Birthdays and other special occasions." This comes before the Peace -- and yesterday it took place directly after the baptism at the font. November 2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of my attending St. Mary's.


I don't remember which Sunday I first went there -- but I think it must have been November 16th. I met Rex late election night -- in the small hours of Wednesday, November 5, 1958, and went with him to evensong at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on the following Sunday, November 9th. So I probably went with him to St. Mary's the Sunday after that. It's been a long time and it makes St. Mary's the second longest constant place in my life. (The first is Heart Lake in Susquehanna County Pennsylvania.)

A Tough Week

On Sunday, October 26, after Liz and I went to St. Mary's for the first time in many weeks, we drove back to Heart Lake for what was intended to be our last regular trip of the season. After conversation on Monday with our contractor, we have determined that we will make another trip (either a day trip or overnight) within the next couple of weeks.

Monday night it started to snow. We were planning to close up Tuesday anyway, and return by way of Binghamton, but weather conditions in the morning determined us to skip the Binghamton part. I drained the water and we loaded the car and were on the road before 11:30 am. The trip took eight hours (normally it takes around three hours.) I went almost direct from the car to a board meeting which lasted until 11:00 pm.

On Wednesday my computer died. Since I use a high powered laptop instead of a desktop, there are complicated issues around repair and recovery. I don't have a current backup of my data -- my backups are at least four months out of date.

Right now I am using Liz's laptop, so for current things I am ok, but I did an awful lot of data entry over the summer -- mostly family history and other genealogy data. I don't want to have to redo all of that. Also my Quicken files -- although I could reconstruct them from paper records I certainly don't want to. There are pictures, however, for which there is no backup or way to recover them except from the hard drive.

I think my problem is that Windows is corrupted, but I am not geeky enough to be able to tell. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for data recovery if I can do it myself, but I also don't want to risk losing my data. So I am actively researching theissue before I do anything. More later.

Home Turf

I have been seeing where the links took me. I started on Saturday at Mimi's Wounded Bird and Wednesday I ended up at JaneR's Acts of Hope. Along the way I hit several blogs that were at least somewhat familiar to me.

When I looked at JaneR's bogroll, I found myself using, for the second time in this exercise, the expression "home turf." Let me explain. I am by temperament more of a lurker thatn a participant in blog conversations. I only really started looking at blogs with any consistency during the spring and summer of 2006, in the lead up to General Convention that year. I soon zeroed in on a small set of blogs that I read faithfully -- in fact, at first only two -- Father Jake Stops The World and Of Course I Could Be Wrong. At those sites I became familiar with the comments of a numbers of people who comment, or did at that time. These folks constitute the core of what I think of as "home turf."

Some of them are listed on my blogroll, but that roll is sorely out of date. I have slowly been adjusting it, but that takes a degree of concentration and discernment that exceeds what I can muster right now.

I began this blog two years ago with a post on October 23, 2006, in which I said "Yesterday I went to my home church, St. Mary's, for the first time in more than 12 weeks." Once again, it's been twelve weeks since I have been at St. Mary's. I won't be there this Sunday either. St. Mary's is truly my home church -- I first went there 50 years ago, in 1958 -- most likely my first Sunday there was November 16, 1958 -- so I am just four weeks away from my fiftieth anniversary. The reason I won't make it to St. Mary's this Sunday is that there are strong reasons for Liz and I to remain at Heart Lake for a day longer than we had planned.

Heart Lake is also home turf to me. I was conceived within 100 yards of the desk where I am writing this. I know that, because when I came out to them in the spring of 1958, my parents, for some reason, told me. This year we have been here since the beginning of July and were planning to shut down this Saturday, October 18. As it happens, though, we are having some landscaping done and it will go on through Sunday, so we have decided to stay on until Monday morning.

Finally, Morningside Gardens and our apartment is another home turf to me. I'll be back there on Monday and will be based there for the next seven to eight months. I'm eager to be home -- and at the same time sorry to leave here.

But back to home turf on the intertubes -- that travels with me.